


It's a thing to see

by jonasnightingale



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: EO rides again, F/M, Fin and Liv are the ultimate brotp, Friendship, Gen, Reunions, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26423494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonasnightingale/pseuds/jonasnightingale
Summary: It's nine years later and through the smog and chaos of New York City brown eyes lock onto blue. There's lifetimes in their gaze; a lifetime lived with all the shared coffees and traumas and jokes and car rides that entails, and a lifetime skipped, years unmoored and lost to each other.Basically a short fic about Elliott and Olivia finally reuniting because fuck COVID for taking that from us.
Relationships: Olivia Benson & Elliot Stabler, Olivia Benson & Odafin "Fin" Tutuola, Olivia Benson/Elliot Stabler, Rafael Barba & Olivia Benson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	It's a thing to see

**Author's Note:**

> “It's a thing to see when a boy comes home.”  
> ― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

There’s police tape stretched across the sidewalk and rain dripping steadily into her eyes. Kat and Rollins are somewhere inside taking statements and Fin’s steady timbre beside her draws through the howling wind and sirens of the city. A car door slams, caught by a bluster, and she looks towards it on instinct. And that’s the moment. Their eyes meet over the car, and for just one instant it all fades to silence - the sirens, the wind, Fin and the local cop - and then her face cracks into a big smile and she watches his mouth turn up in response. 

She’d always thought it would hurt. Would be a sharp stab of pain to her chest like when Barba’s face had appeared on her screen just shy of a year after he’d left. She’d envisioned vitriol filled words and getting up in each others space with pointing fingers. There’d be accusations, and betrayal fuelled words that could never be taken back; she thought all the disappointment and anger would crash through the internal dams that held them in check. But she just lets out a soft exhale and tracks the obvious changes in him as he crosses the street towards them. Fin’s caught sight of him by now and mutters out a “Well I’ll be damned” even as he shifts incrementally closer to her side. 

Everything has changed since he left. She has changed. Her whole life seems so radically different from the lonely existence of those years. Hell, even the world around them has morphed into something unrecognisable. There’s a shadow of regret for all the years lost between them, a sadness that he wasn’t there to run to after Lewis, that he hasn’t been a part of Noah’s life; but still she can’t muster up the resentment she’d expected to feel, not a trace of it left to be found within her. 

He’s in front of her, and for all the new grey lingering at his temples, the blue eyes haven’t changed a speck. She can feel Fin at her side, assessing. But she falls into him so easily, into the casual intimacy that’s always been between them, feeling his cheek against hers, his arms tight across her back. There’s no fight left in her bones, no resentment thrumming through her veins -this just feels like coming home.


End file.
